Welcome Back, JPez

After a terribly uninspiring start to the Indians series, we turned it around, and here we are having won seven of our last ten! In the back of my mind, I’ve still been kind of expecting us to fall apart, now that we’re playing decent teams and all. But we’ve been treating these guys like they’re in the National League. It hasn’t been beautiful-for example, I think Piniero got really lucky. I did not think he looked especially good, but it was like karma owed Felix a win and accidentally bestowed it upon Joel. I have also been worrying about our offense a little, though it was exciting to see Ben “Fistful of Boomstick” Broussard get a pay-back home run on Saturday. (That’s not the nickname I’m sticking with, by the way- we’ll talk about it more after the trade deadline. I’ve just really been wanting to say “Fistful Of Boomstick” for a while.)

I’m a little less concerned after yesterday, though, because it appears we have our JPez back! Poor guy was going 0-for-the-entire-life-of-his-son. Believe me, I understand- having a child is extremely distracting. I’m practically unable to complete basic everyday tasks like laundry since Brendan Ichiro has come along, and he’s nearly two. Luckily the son is question is only about ten days old, so we hadn’t lost all hope. And then yesterday, the magic reappeared. And in the nick of time, too! Three hits for our boy, one of which gave us the lead in the ninth! That’s what I was counting on, and it’s so exciting when this team comes through.

Yesterday’s game was fun to watch, and the ninth inning in particular was one of those times when I feel lucky to be a baseball fan. I was sort of halfway taking a nap during most of the eighth inning, but by the time Johjima came to bat I knew I needed to shake myself awake. As you know, it was totally worth it. And it was even fun to watch the bottom of the ninth, with all its potential for catastrophe. Now if only the rest of the AL West would quit insisting on winning every single time we do! Copycats.